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SJ, Google Working to Transform Diridon Station

San Jose and Google are working together to transform 250 acres near the city's Diridon station into a new retail and office space development. Marianne Favro reports. (Published Tuesday, June 6, 2017)

San Jose and Google are working together to transform 250 acres near the city's Diridon station into a new retail and office space development.

Further details on the project near the SAP Center calls for a park along Los Gatos Creek. The project is expected to create plenty of jobs.

A developer is already working to build offices near SAP Center, but city officials will not say if Google will be moving in.

The projected 6 million square feet of new office space is expected to create as many as 20,000 new jobs.

“In partnership with Google, we can reimagine Silicon Valley’s landscape, by creating a vibrant, architecturally iconic, transit-focused village that provides a model for a more sustainable future, and a sharp departure from the sprawling, auto-oriented tilt-up tech campuses of the valley’s past,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a statement. “The time has come for us to think boldly about the future of our city’s center. Silicon Valley’s center of gravity is shifting southward. As we build Diridon to become the busiest multi-modal station in the west, the tens of thousands who will commute here daily will know that they have arrived in Silicon Valley’s urban center, and that Downtown San Jose has arrived.”

Others applaud the fact the development is near the Diridon station and could help ease traffic on highways by offering jobs near mass transit.

But not everyone is rolling out the red carpet. Some fear the huge development will lead to the gentrification of downtown.